Your plans sound lovely! I, too, have waited my whole life to do my kitchen, and am shocked to find myself paralyzed by some decisions (e.g. refrigerators - why do they all stink?). I'm with you on not liking the backsplashes featuring a bit of the counter material. Today's crush has been back-painted glass, which seems to be either be expensive or not. Its not busy -- just soothing and calm, which is my goal. Best of luck and I look forward to seeing more pictures.

Beautiful slab, adorable daughter! When you initially posted "I hate counters", I thought, "wait until you get to backsplashes". Get your cabinets & countertops installed before you make a backsplash decision. The lighting in your home will make all the difference. In the meantime, collect ideas & samples.

This post was edited by romy718 on Wed, Jun 25, 14 at 1:55

I had everything ready on day one, which really bucks the GW protocol, but I did it by choice and it sped up the reno considerably. I went from demo to operational in 35 days, completed in 42 days (and we had hiccups).

I also have an open-concept home and a modern kitchen. I would recommend a backsplash that ties in with the other "rooms". Since your floor and decor will already be different than the other spaces, I would try for a backsplash that unifies the home.

I'm hoping to be able to point pictures of the other rooms this week. I did take some, but the mess was horrifying. My six year old is home with me all week with no playmate. (Her nine year old sister is off at overnight camp for two weeks!) She entertained herself while I cooked for hours yesterday, making all our dinner for the rest of the week, but I can't seem to get to all the piles of crap they bright home from elementary school, etc. But she has day camp next week. I've committed to spending two hours a day cleaning.

You've got a lot of light absorbing materials in there. It all sounds lovely, but I'm thinking you need something with a shiny surface to bounce light back and/or a light color. I agree it should be something that also goes well with the rest of the house too. I'd look for glass tile, or maybe as another poster suggested, backpainted glass.
Lovely daughter! nice counter too.

That is a beautiful picture and the slab doesn't look bad either.

We had natural cherry slab cabinets in our last kitchen and I second the glass tile. It was so easy to keep clean and gave a bit of sparkle to the room. I also saw some beautiful frosted glass tiles as I've been looking this time. Have fun with the hunt! I had my four year old granddaughter with me last week and she loved the tile stores.

Romy718 said: When you initially posted "I hate counters", I thought, "wait until you get to backsplashes". Lol, needed that to start my day of - make *some* headway with bs. Just a little headway, I'd b happy.

My modernaire hood gets shipped today. Yay! Now just waiting for last window to come in before I can make some final decisions. Kitchen style, even at this late stage of reno, is still evolving. Ooops

A good flooring person can easily match your existing hardwoods to new...it is done all the time. I think with your open plan you will be happier with a cohesive floor. Your granite is lovely!!

But will he match up the 60+ years of (unintentional) staining, scratching, etc? ;) I think my best bet is to go for a cheap floor now, knowing that someday I'll redo the whole main floor. It's not like refinishing this floor is in budget either, so unless I salvage, it won't match up.

Now I'm sitting here starting at the ceramic tile that is higher than my regular floor, wondering if maybe there is wood underneath. Dare I try to pry one up? It's not like it's not going to demoed in a month.

Edit: have you been laughing at my pry comment? Take a chisel and mallet to it? And if Id o, and even if there is wood, that wood is probably useless, right?

This post was edited by joygreenwald on Wed, Jun 25, 14 at 8:25

Defintely wait on the backsplash. We went back and forth to the tile store several times for samples. In the store they looked like a perfect match, at home, with our lighting, they weren't. Backsplash is the last thing to do, and it is one of the hardest IMO, although we finally got it right. One mistake I made - I painted the kitchen walls before I had it all done, thinking it would be easier, no worries about paint splatter on the cabinets. BAD idea, the color isn't right, so I will be spending the weekend of the 4th repainting.

I wouldn't replace old hardwood with anything harvested today. From what I've read, the old growth oak is gone and today's new growth isn't as hard, so it scratches and dents easily. Even high heels can leave pockmarks. I also have heard that laminate is not a good choice for a kitchen floor. You could look into luxury vinyl tile as a low cost alternative to ceramic tile. I used Armstrong Alterna in a guest bath, grouted it, and it looks like ceramic tile. I don't think it's too hard of a DIY job, though the flooring store installed ours.

As for your kitchen floor tile--it probably had linoleum originally, so they added cement backerboard over it when they laid the tile, otherwise the tile can crack. LVT doesn't need cement board, so you might be able to eliminate your speed bump between the tile and hardwood.

You mentioned using a G shape for your layout. I would advise not to for your kitchen size. My neighbor has a G peninsula with the DW in the curve, and her kitchen looks so much smaller than mine. Only one person can actually fit comfortably inside the G. I don't think she can even stand at the sink and open the DW.

Golly, your 6-year old looks awfully like my 9-year old, right down to the hair, clothes, everything!

However, we *are* getting soapstone (to go with Barker's maple cabinets), and my daugther's favorite things when I got her to go stone shopping with me were 1) to spray down the soapstone, and 2) demand that we buy the most expensive most sparkly granites.

We just did a small kitchen that abuts one room with old (maybe original to the 60yo house) wood parquet and another room with 10yo engineered wood. Since it's a small house I wanted as much continuous flow as possible, which meant hardwood for the kitchen. The guys were not artisans but they had no trouble matching the stain.

However for reasons unknown to me they did not match the plank size to the engineered wood. I would have preferred as much consistency as possible but finishing the floors was literally the last step in a renovation that dragged out longer than expected. It was a little shiny on day one but a week later it doesn't seem much different in tone than the ancient parquet OR the newer engineered wood. Honestly the visual impression is exactly what I wanted one room flowing into the next without a stark difference in color or material to break it up (and make it look smaller or disconnected.)

How about backpainted glass? Check out the thread that's currently going on here on GW.

your daughter is beautiful:) I'm sure you will make the right choice; so far sounds great.
I would also look at a light glass to bounce around some light.

OK, so I spent hours at a huge tile store this morning. We rejected just about everything. For some reason, the glass didn't work for me. Neither did most other things I liked. The metallic, however, did do it for me.

I found a mosaic I like, but I'm worried it will be too busy. I'm really not into most of the images I see of finished kitchens with mosiacs. But this does have bigger bars. It the multi metal one in the picture below. It's also not cheap (though it could be worse.) I'd have to install it myself if I want to pay for it. I was thinking it could be great as an accent.

The metal next to it is actually a sheet of galvanized steel. I'm considering a DIY steel backsplash. What do you think? Also, any idea what you'd call that? Any idea how to find it in a pre-fab or DIY backspash material? I love the darker color, but everything in my searching is getting me more traditional brushed stainless.

I agree with someone above that it's sounding like it might end up pretty dark in there. I am finishing up my own kitchen and just have a suggestion for the backsplash: white subway tiles! haha, no really, if you do them in a stacked pattern, not the staggered running bond that is 99% of subway tile applications out there, they look very different. Very modern. You can do it horizontally or vertically. They're inexpensive too, and the big box stores stock them so you don't have to wait for special order. Plus, white. Bright. And they don't compete visually with busy stone counter patterns.

This is a bathroom I did but you get the idea.

I know it's going to sound crazy, but we hated everything white with my granite/ counter combo. I was all gung ho on white waves until I actually saw it. I might do a stainless subway ish tile. But it's not my favorite. I'd rather go ahead and make a "brushed stainless" backsplash out of aluminum flashing I think. Have to see what my husband thinks after work.